STAFF RESOURCES

Minutes of the October 12, 1998 Meeting

At our first meeting on 10/12/98, it was clarified that we will do some of the assessment work, but the Libraries Assessment Committee (LAC) will not be the only group that does assessment. SACs, other library groups, individuals will all have opportunities for doing assessment, depending on what it actually is. The LAC will be a place that various library projects can turn to for design of the assessment part of the project, for mustering systems, staff for surveying and analyzing or end users for feedback, and for other relevant assistance or support.

While we have already gotten some input from librarians/staff, we decided to have open meetings on each campus in the near future to hear what other librarians/staff have to say about assessment. But we will wait until we have a few assessment results to share with them.

It was agreed that we will,

collect data and do assessments that will support directly the Libraries' strategic plan;

collect data manually, ONLY IF the data cannot be generated through automated systems;

collect data and do assessments, ONLY IF the information will be useful for the current environment (or required by the organizations to which we belong, e.g. ARL);
focus more on new services, e.g. online resources, electronic reserve, onlin ILL, networked printing and on the impact of information and instructional technologies on libraries.

We brainstormed on which projects the LAC should work on initially. In light of additional serial cancellations, we decided to take a close look at the usage of online resources, IDEAL, ProQuest Direct, etc., especially in those cases when last print copy is canceled. Attached are listings of 1999 cancellations prepared by Bob Sewell which show, among other things, the availability of electronic version, with or without a paper copy at Rutgers.

Attached also are some pages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison journal cost-per-use data which are now available on the web at: http://www.wisc.edu/wendt/misc/costben/costben.html. Please visit the site when you have a chance. We will discuss at our next meeting how useful and feasible it is to replicate that kind of study here.

I would like to welcome Adeline Tallau and Emily Fabiano who will join us on the committee.
The Committee will meet on November 9 at 2:00 pm in the conference room on the 3rd floor of
Alexander Library.